SEE `DICK' RUN

By Lewis Beale

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

Feb 01, 1998 | 12:00 AM

It's not pretty in `Pink' as Nixon's 1950 Senate campaign is recounted by Lewis Beale Racist, anti-Semite, felon is there anything else we need to know about Richard Nixon? Not that Nixon's numerous transgressions against morality and political decency mean anything to his long-time supporters: They might as well be members of the Flat Earth Society, for all the effect that hours of White House tapes and endless pages of historical documents have had on their critical faculties. Which means that "Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady" (Random House, $25), author Greg Mitchell's absorbing account of Nixon's Red-baiting 1950 California senatorial campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, is essentially preaching to the choir. Nixon detractors will read it as yet another example of the ex-President's endlessly sleazy career. Nixon fans will see a brave young congressman battling a Commie-symp liberal at a time of crisis. Author Mitchell comes down squarely on the anti-Nixon side, but still manages to maintain a relatively balanced perspective. By placing the campaign in the context of Cold War politics (it was the era of HUAC, loyalty oaths and the Korean War), "Tricky Dick" makes it clear that others had Red-baited before Nixon. It's just that the boy from Whittier did it better, and with more oily conviction, than his predecessors (including the occasional foray into Jew-baiting). There's also the issue of sexual politics. Douglas was a glamorous former actress, married to Hollywood star Melvyn Douglas (real name Hesselberg, hence Nixon's anti-Semitic moments). But she was operating in an era when few female politicians were taken seriously. And despite her strongly held left-liberal convictions, Mitchell's book makes her out to be something of a political naif, who ran a nearly incompetent campaign. In fact, reading "Tricky Dick," you're almost amazed Douglas got as many votes as she did (although Nixon won by a whopping 59% to 40% margin). Most of the major California papers, right-wing to the core, virtually blacked out news of Douglas' campaign. Combine this with Nixon's mastery at dirty tricks and the political smear, his access to gobs of money from wealthy reactionaries and President Truman's failure to campaign for Douglas what you come up with is a candidacy that was doomed from its inception. Mitchell tells this story in a breezy, fact-filled manner. Although the Cold War context has been examined many times over, it still serves to round out a portrait of a very scary time in recent American history. If nothing else, it also helps explain how a gutter-crawling wretch like Richard Milhous Nixon could take advantage of anti-Communist hysteria and become a major player on the U.